Important Collector's Watches, Pocket...

Geneva, Nov 11, 2007

LOT 41

"Watch with 8 Complications" Attributed to Louis Audemars, Swiss, No. 2296, retailed by Marcks & Co., Bombay & Poona. Made for the Indian market, circa 1870. Very fine and very rare, minute-repeating, keyless, 18K gold pocket watch with triple-date calendar, moon phases and age, Reaumur thermometer and center-seconds with Audemars-type "rattrapante" chronograph hand with mechanism under the dial and without return-to-zero function. Accompanied by a fitted box.

CHF 35,000 - 45,000

EUR 20,000 - 27,000 / USD 30,000 - 38,000

Sold: CHF 38,940

C. Four-body, "bassine et filet", polished, engine-turned back cover "grains d'orge", single button in the crown for the stop and rejoin chronograph hand functions. Hinged gold cuvette. D. White enamel, radial Roman numerals, outer minute and seconds divisions and Arabic five minute/seconds numerals, subsidiary dials for the date, days of the week and months, aperture for the moon phases with moon's age on the edge, Reaumur thermometer scale below. Gold "pear" hour and minute hands, blued steel chronograph hands. M. 20''', frosted gilt, 29 jewels, gold wheel train, wolf's tooth winding, counterpoised straight-line lever escapement, cut bimetallic compensation balance with peripheral gold adjustment screws, blued steel Breguet balance spring, index regulator, repeating on gongs activated by a slide on the band. Dial and cuvette signed by the retailer. Diam. 54 mm.


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Grading System
Grade: AAA

Excellent
Case: 3-12

Good

Worn
Movement: 3*

Good

Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense
Dial: 3-55-01

Good

Luminous material reapplied

HANDS Original

Notes

This watch is undoubtedly a product of the Louis Audemars workshops, the type of center-seconds with rattrapante chronograph mechanism fitted beneath the dial was developed by Audemars. The rattrapante hand is stopped by the first pressure on the push-piece and then rejoins the center-seconds hand with the second pressure; a zero positioning of the hand is not possible. The small depression in the repeat slide, the dial and movement design, exposed hand-setting button, and the use of the Reaumur thermometer, are all classic Louis Audemars features.
Literature:
A watch with exactly the same chronograph and center-seconds mechanism, presented at the 1862 London International Exhibition, is illustrated and described in "Louis-Benjamin Audemars, His Life and Work" by Hartmut Zantke, 2003, p. 241.
Marcks & Co., Bombay & Poona. Was the most prestigious luxury goods store in India. The company specialized in "Grande Complication" watches, watches with perpetual calendar, independent seconds with diablotine, chronographs, repeaters, clockwatches, and tourbillons.